Germans set to miss ambitious medals target

August 10, 2012|Reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Olympic athletes will miss their target of winning 86 medals by some way, an interior ministry paper showed on Friday, but a senior sports official said there was not necessarily a link between medals won and public funding.

After 14 days of competition, the Germans have managed to win 38 medals - 10 gold, 17 silver and 11 bronze - enough to secure them sixth place as of Friday.

Germany had won 16 gold medals, 10 silver and 15 bronze medals at the 2008 Games in Beijing.

The ministry paper showed medal hopes had been highest for athletes competing in track and field, cycling and swimming, with an expectation each would return with eight.

But Germany's swimmers only won one silver medal with Britta Steffen, who won two Olympic titles in Beijing, leaving London empty-handed. German cyclists and track and field athletes managed to secure five medals each.

The rowers were also expected to achieve four golds, but they only managed two.

"We agree wholly with the interior minister that there is no automatism between medals and the allocation of public funding," German Olympic Sports Confederation president Thomas Bach said in a statement.

But Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said the ministry would carry out a comprehensive analysis after the end of the Games and "draw the necessary conclusions for sports funding".

Earlier on Friday, an Austrian newspaper quoted the country's sports minister as saying Austria would no longer support "Olympic tourists" and was fed up with athletes who had performed poorly.

The minister promised a major shake-up of state support for competitors after the country failed to win a summer Olympic Games medal for the first time in half a century.